May 21, 2014 Article

The Old Coot rants at TV ads. Yet again!

By Merlin Lessler

I’m insulted! You should be too. At the pablum TV advertisers try to feed us. The pumped up, and screaming car dealer decked out in a $1,000 Armani suit, or the one taking the casual route in kakis and an Arnold Palmer golf shirt, promising to knock $7,000 off the price of a truck (down to $47,000) because he is over stocked and needs to cut down his overhead. It must be true! Look at all the balloons and waving flags blanketing the sales lot.

Then there’s the pest control, plumbing, or other “come to your home” repairmen, portrayed on TV in crisp, perfectly ironed, pristine, military styled outfits, shinned shoes and neatly trimmed hair, faces handsome enough to grace the silver screen, promising to arrive on time and quickly solve your problem. Good luck opening your door to anyone close to that image.

My favorite is the medical looking actor in a long white lab coat. Sometimes with a stethoscope hanging from his neck, promising a cure for a condition you didn’t even know existed:  neuro-lasitude, hippo-paino, or necka-achea. Just take his pill. Then, with a pristine mountain stream as a backdrop, a seductive comforting voice lists the potentially lethal side effects that he hopes will go in one of your ears and out the other. Most of these aliments go away on their own, but in our instant-gratification society, the pharmaceutical companies make a fortune because of our impatience. We buy the stuff. And, sometimes sue, at the urging of TV lawyers in three-piece suits, promising us millions.

How about the ads that beat back Mother Nature by using specially formulated creams and oils that remove wrinkles, tighten neck waddle and make age spots disappear? Or, the never-ending lineup of diet and fitness breakthroughs, that without any effort or willpower, will make us trim, fit and healthy in six short weeks.

Oh yes, they really shovel it on TV, these pablum pushers. The parade of con men and snake oil salesmen and women that stalk us from the other side of our TV screen is endless. And, we sit there in our adult high chairs while they feed us pablum and bang our spoons on the tray for more. 

May 14, 2014 Article

The Old Coot explains the modern version of musical chairs.

By Merlin Lessler

I call it musical checkout-counters. It’s like musical chairs, the game kids played at birthday parties back in my day, and sometimes these days, but musical checkout-counters is played in stores. It’s especially popular in pharmacies, the national chains anyhow. I don’t know why they still call themselves pharmacies. They do sell drugs, but that’s a back room operation. The real store is out front. I’m not sure what it is. A gift shop? A grocery store? A beverage center? A convenience store? All of the above? No matter, they install four or five check out stations and then don’t use them. The only clerk in sight is at the photo center wearing a white lab coat, looking professional, but busy. These employees are the store’s best workers, the ones out front dealing with customers, the ones who have to apologize for the empty check out stations.

The musical checkout-counter game begins when the clerk runs into the back to get something, leaving the check out area unmanned. You emerge from the aisles with your arms loaded with stuff, survey the line of empty check out stations, head for the one that is least cluttered with junk and hope for the best. You glance around for a clerk, but the store appears empty. You search the counter for a bell or a buzzer but find neither. You cough; you let out a loud yawn, you clear your throat. Nothing! That’s when you look around for a hidden camera, picturing a roomful of store employees watching your frustration and rolling on the floor laughing.

Finally, a clerk shows up. Slides behind a counter twenty feet to your left and announces, “I can help you over here.” They never pick the one where you’ve unloaded your items. You scramble as fast as you can to gather up your goods, but another customer comes out of the aisle and walks right up to the clerk. You lost this round of musical checkout-counters! Then, you lose again; two more customers make it to the line ahead of you. 

The game is a little different in grocery stores. They play two different games. The first one is played when you head for the express line. The clerk spots you coming, and when you almost make it, she yells to a customer passing by with a fully loaded cart, “I can take you here, maam.” The cart is maneuvered into the slot just as you arrive. It’s too late. You lost! The second game is what I call the “lights-out” game. It’s also played in K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target and other big box stores. It starts when you get stuck in line behind a customer having an argument with the clerk (and the manager) about an outdated discount coupon. You see an opening a few rows away, gather your goods, push past and apologize to the six people behind you in line and rush to the “Promised Land.” Just as you get there, the clerk reaches up, turns off her light and walks away. You go back to where you were, but now you’re at the end of the line.

I’ve played this game for years and never won. It’s getting more vicious. Especially the version played in airports. They make you stand in line in stocking feet holding your shoes. Your valuables, car keys and pocket change lie exposed in a plastic bin as a gloved masochist paws through your carry on bag, searching for weapons of mass destruction: nail clippers, tooth paste and hand cream. You are in the worst musical chairs game of all, “musical screening.” One by one, the passengers in front of you pass through the metal detector. Now, it’s your turn; you hold your breath and step into the torture chamber. The buzzer sounds! It makes you feel like you’re seven years old all over again, when the music stopped and a bully pushed you aside and plopped down in the last available chair. 

May 7, 2014 Article

The Old Coot leans to the left

By Merlin Lessler

I found myself listing to the left the other day. I noticed it as I walked across the street (jaywalking, of course) and saw my reflection in the window at Tioga Trails Cafe. I was on a tilt, about 15 degrees, like a ship in high seas, taking on water and about to capsize. This was yet another old coot affliction to come my way. My first episode of listing left.

It all started with a sore knee. Like all old knees, abused by running and weekend warrior sports activities at a time in life when old age seems a far off rumor, they flare up every once in a while. No big deal. Treat it kindly for a few days and the irritation goes away. (A few weeks if you don’t behave.) So, the tender knee started me on a list to the left. Then I slept wrong on my shoulder. It joined my knee in protest. My framework adjusted and increased the list.

My back didn’t like being pulled out of kilter so it joined the chorus, increasing the angle of my lean to 15 degrees. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. “Ok, I’m a little crooked. So what?” Like that old poem about meeting a crooked man, who walked a crooked mile that we recited back when memorizing poems was still a part of the curriculum in public schools. But there is a, “So what!” (When you’re an old coot.), Listing to the left can set you up for a fall. If you step off a curb with your left foot your weight over-shifts in that direction, and if you aren’t ready for it, down you go. An old coot lying in the gutter.

One fall should be enough to get you acclimated to your left leaning tendency, but us old coots reside in a state of denial and usually forget the affliction that is affecting us at the moment. It takes several falls and a score of close calls before we adjust. Eventually, the knee gets better, the shoulder returns too normal and the sore back reluctantly goes along. Presto! We’re standing straight again. As straight as an old coot can anyhow. We gloat a little and brag to our self, “I won another one!” We know something new will come our way; it’s just a matter of time. But that’s part of the fun, the adventure of living in an old coot body. Might as well enjoy it.

April 30, 2014 Article

The Old Coot gets his car inspected.

By Merlin Lessler

Joe! Joe! Can you squeeze me in? My car inspection is due today.  I won’t mention Joe’s last name; he’s a little irritated with me at the moment. It’s Joe Sellars of Hilltop Service Center.

 I don’t know, he responds. I’m pretty booked up, and three of these cars have to leave for a trip out of town at 6AM tomorrow morning.

Oh come on Joe; it’s just an inspection. You can work it in. He finally agrees (just to get rid of me).  I toss him the keys and scramble out the door. I forget to mention that the check engine light is on, hidden behind a piece of black electrical tape, the left rear tire is bald, the front turn signal on the driver’s side isn’t working and the cars smells like exhaust when you stop for a red light.

Joe walks back into his shop, mumbling Old Coot something under his breath. Marty picks his head up and asks, What did you say?

Nothing, Joe replies. Just talking to myself. Then Marty spots my car out front. Is that the Old Coot’s car? It is isn’t it? Now we really are in a mess. How could you? Joe has no answer. He crawls under the hood of a car, pulls way to hard on a wrench and his knuckles smash into the engine block. That’s when the phone rings.

You get it, Marty shouts from under a pickup truck. Let it ring, Joe yells back. After 35 rings, Joe comes out from under the hood and goes into the office to answer it.

Did you get started on my inspection, I ask. Not yet, Joe replies. I’ll try to get at it sometime this afternoon.

Change the oil while you’re at it and check the pressure in the tires, I say, while listening to a dial tone.

Twenty minutes later I call back. Joe sounds a little surly. I just wanted to know how he was making out; had he gotten to it yet. He had the same attitude the next three times I called. You’d think I was getting him out of bed in the middle of the night. Jeesh!

So I changed my strategy; I hopped into my wife’s car and drove out to Glen Mary Drive to check on things in person. He still hadn’t started on my car so I hung around to see if my presence would motivate him a little. He stuck his head back under the hood. I did too. And asked him what he was doing, did he need a hand? I didn’t think a person’s face could get that red. He better get his blood pressure checked. I think he has hypertension. I walked over to help Marty, but as soon as he spotted me heading in his direction he scampered under a pickup truck. I could take a hint. I took off.

I called again at 2. No answer. Same thing at 3, 3:30 and 3:45. Finally at 4 o’clock Marty answered. He didn’t say it with words, but I could tell by his tone he was getting testy. He took my number, said Joe would call when it was done, that they would finish it today, no matter how late they had to stay. I called back at 5:00. All I got was a busy signal. Same thing at 5:15 and 5:30.

Joe called at 6:30. You’re all set. I had to put on a new tire, repair the signal light, replace the O2 sensor and fix a leak in the exhaust. It sounded to me like he was taking advantage of my situation, an inspection sticker that expired at midnight. I went out to pick it up. He handed me the bill with a grease-covered, bloodied hand. It was over $200! Wow! I said. That’s a little steep for an inspection! He grimaced and then his face turned beet red. It got even redder when I patted my back pocket and told him I’d have to settle up with him later; I’d forgotten my wallet. He stared at me with a blank look on his face, which had now gone from red to purple. Then, he just walked away grumbling to himself. What is it with mechanics these days? They sure are a grumpy bunch.

April 23, 2014 Article

The Old Coot is a fashion plate?

by Merlin Lessler

I walked out of the house the other day. A baloney sandwich in the left side pocket of my cargo pants, a water bottle in the right. A cell phone, note pad, pen, glasses and wallet completed the cargo that was snug and secure in one of the cleverly located spaces made for just such things. I’m so happy to live in the “cargo pant” era. You can walk down the street loaded with essentials and your hands swing free. I even had room for the other stuff I sometimes carry: lipstick, gloss, compact, blush and a perfume atomizer. But, my wife wasn’t with me, so extra space was available in my duds.

I don’t know who invented cargo pants (and shorts) for everyday use. The concept probably started in the military or as a field & stream garment. It doesn’t really matter; someone adopted it and started making cargo pants for regular people. Us old coots especially love them. We’re averse to going around with a backpack strapped to our shoulders; it makes us look like high school or college student wannabes. They’re foreign to us, not part of our history growing up. We didn't use backpacks when we went to school. We used nap sacks for hiking, but for school, we stumbled around balancing a two-foot stack of textbooks, notebooks and three ring binders on our hips, subjecting our selves to someone coming up from behind, shoving our books to the floor and chuckling, "Dropped a few subjects did you?"

Fanny packs are out too, for us old coots, who delude ourselves into thinking we’re hip. It's the name that does it. It too babyish, too un-cool. Maybe if the packs had been named, lumbar packs or belt carriers, we might have gone that route. It would have been a lot easier than what I do, go around with a canvas bag slung over one shoulder, so it’s technically not a backpack or a fanny pack. It’s frayed and unpretentious. I use it when I'm carrying more than my cargo pants can hold: a thermos of coffee, the Sunday Times and a wad of unfinished old coot articles that I hope to complete if I ever break through the writer’s block that's stopped me cold. My wife calls it a man purse, just to see me wince. I always protest, "It's not leather and doesn't look urbane; it's a writers bag, not a man purse!" She just laughs. 

I’m waiting for the next phase, the next evolution, cargo-suits for old coots. Two extra outside pockets on the pants, a pouch-pocket in the back of the jacket, big enough to hold a 10-inch tablet. We’ll be a lumpy bunch, us old coots, standing around at a wedding reception in pinstripe cargo suits, but we’ll be equipped for any eventuality. The outfit will be topped off with a cargo-tie, containing a secret pocket in back, just big enough to hold a smart phone so we can keep up on the scores of football, basketball, lacrosse and baseball games. Some people claim the greatest invention of the 20^th century was the computer, but they’re wrong. It was cargo pants!

April 16, 2014 Article

The Old Coot mourns the loss of moola.

By Merlin Lessler

Money has lost its pizzazz! It once added real color to our language. Back when a five-dollar bill was called a “Five-spot” a “Fin” a “Lincoln.” When a quarter was two bits, as in that old jingle, Shave and a haircut: two bits.

Today it’s a bore. You go to an ATM and get a stack of twenties, the one denomination that lacks a colorful past. Probably because it was a rarity back in the colorful money heyday. People had coins in their pocket, a dollar bill, a five, maybe a ten once in a while, but rarely a twenty. The ten was king for the average person. A 10-spot! A sawbuck! It had pizzazz. (Called a sawbuck because the Roman numeral for ten is an X which looks like a sawbuck (an old term for sawhorse). Some big spenders, those fortunate enough to get their hands on a twenty, sometimes called it a double sawbuck since it had no name of its own.

It’s getting worse, our drab money terminology. Moola, scratch, wad, bread, dough, smackers, clams are long gone, as are: 5-spot, 10-spot, c-note, fin, fiver, single, a Washington, a Lincoln.  Even today’s colorless terminology: 5-dollar bill, 10-dollar bill, a twenty, a fifty, is slipping away as plastic money and smart phone Apps replace cash money entirely. No pizzazz in that form of monetary exchange. We’ve lost so much. You can’t brag that you won ten thousand smackers (ten grand) in the lottery! All you are left with is a weak statement about the ten thousand monetary credits that have been electronically transferred to your bank account.

Now, Bitcoin is making its move, an invisible, digital replacement for both real currency and plastic money. The trouble is, a lot of people holding Bitcoins are now holding the bag, an empty one at that. Millions of those Bitcoins have disappeared or lost value and the Internet Company that created them has gone out of business. Kind of makes us old coots who stuff our wads, our dough, our moola, under the mattress look pretty smart But, digital money will persevere, and eventually complete the destruction of the sawbuck, the fin and the c-note.  I’ll bet five smackers on it! 

April 9, 2014 Article

The Old Coot throws like a girl!

By Merlin Lessler

I throw like a girl! (an eight-year-old one at that) I know. I know. That’s a shameless, sexist statement. Especially for a guy with five daughters, none of who throw like a girl. But, I don’t know how else to put it. It shocked me to see how much muscle tone I’ve lost, on my slide deeper and deeper into old-coot-hood. I go around thinking I still retain some of the athletic abilities I possessed in my younger days, then a sudden awareness like this slaps me across the face.

It started as a simple game of catch with my eight year old granddaughter, Oriah. She’s a football player, a good one. One season she scored almost all of her team’s touchdowns. We were in the driveway tossing a football back and forth. Like all games of catch, it got boring after a while. That’s when I dug into my bag of grandfather tricks. The look left and throw right thing. The put the ball behind your back, bow down and quickly toss it over your head from the back using two hands. The roll it down your arm and bounce it off your bicep toss. Stuff like that.

That gets boring after a while too. Lame, is more like it. We finally got to where all games of catch get to, the “see how far you can throw it” stage. I’d throw it and then take a step back. She did the same. Eventually, we were as far apart as we could get without her bouncing it to get to me. That’s where the rude awakening came in. It was the exact same distance at which I could throw it without bouncing it too. I looked over at this sweet little girl; she smiled, and then said,  “Throw it back grandpa.” I stood there frozen. I was lost in the realization that I THROW LIKE AN EIGHT YEAR OLD GIRL! I made a mental note, not to play a game of “how far can you throw it” with her. She’ll gain arm strength and won’t want to play with a short-thrower.

She went in the house and sent her little brother, Atlas, to play catch with me. He's only six. I knew I could out throw him. But, it was not to be. He could throw it exactly as far as I could. I'm going to carry a sling with me in the future. Anytime one of the kids wants to play catch, I'll slip my arm into it and beg off. I may have lost my throwing strength, and now throw like a girl, but I still have an image to maintain!